The Santa Monica Daily Press will hold three Squirm Night forums this year with opportunities for readers to get up close and personal with candidates from the Rent Control Board, SMMUSD Board and City Council.
Tuesday's forum, held at the Thelma Terry Building in Virginia Ave Park, will include information from both sides of the Proposition 10 debate.
The Daily Press forums have evolved over the years and for the 2018 election, there will be individual events rather than a single joint debate. Daily Press staff will craft questions for each race and the audience is invited to submit questions during the event for consideration.
New this year are a pair of partnerships. We will be working with The Malibu Times for the SMMUSD forum and with the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce for the City Council event. Questions for the School Board forum have been developed in partnership with student journalists at Samohi and Malibu High School. Students from both schools have been invited to participate in the SMMUSD forum.
SMMUSD candidates will meet at Pt. Dume Elementary school in Malibu and the City Council debate will take place at the Main Library. No live forum is currently scheduled for the SMC Board but the Daily Press is working with the SMC Corsair student newspaper on an alternate plan.
All candidates in all races have been invited to participate.
The format for all three events will be similar. After an introduction, candidates will make opening statements. That will be followed by questions from moderators. Some questions will go to all candidates, some to a subset and some to an individual candidate. Audience questions will also be gathered during the event for possible inclusion at the end of the night.
Candidates are not provided with forum questions ahead of time. However, the paper does solicit written answers from all candidates in all races for published profiles that are running throughout October.
The Daily Press will consider the forums and written surveys in its formal endorsements.
Rent Control Board / Prop 10 forum
Tuesday, October 9
Thelma Terry Building at Virginia Ave. Park (2200 Virginia Ave.)
6 – 8 p.m. (Prop. 10 from 6 – 6:45 p.m. and RCB candidates from 7 – 8 p.m.)
SMMUSD Forum, with the Malibu Times
Wednesday, October 10.
Pt. Dume Elementary School (6955 Fernhill Dr., Malibu)
6 – 8 p.m.
City Council forum with the Chamber of Commerce
Tuesday, October 16
MLK Auditorium at the Main Library (601 Santa Monica Blvd.)
6 – 8 p.m.
